featured book

featured book

The Burning of Bridget Cleary

A True Story

Format

Paperback

Price

$16.00

Paperback

ISBN 9780141002026

320 Pages

1 Jul 2001

Penguin Books

18 and up

Overview

In 1895, Bridget Cleary, a strong-minded and independent young woman, disappeared from her house in rural Tipperary. At first her family claimed she had been taken by fairies-but then her badly burned body was found in a shallow grave. Bridget’s husband, father, aunt, and four cousins were arrested and tried for murder, creating one of the first mass media sensations in Ireland and England as people tried to make sense of what had happened. Meanwhile, Tory newspapers in Ireland and Britain seized on the scandal to discredit the cause of Home Rule, playing on lingering fears of a savage Irish peasantry. Combining historical detective work, acute social analysis, and meticulous original scholarship, Angela Bourke investigates Bridget’s murder.

The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Awards

Praise

“Tightly constructed and authentically dramatic…a powerful reconstruction of the crime.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A fascinating, complex study…Bourke uses the horrific murder as a springboard to tell a larger story about sex, religion, and politics.” —USA Today

Table of Contents

Family Tree: Clearys, Bolands, and KennedysChronology: March-July 1895Maps1: Laborers, Priests, and Peelers2: Fairies and Fairy Doctors3: Reading, Sewing, Hens, and Houses4: Bridget Cleary Falls Ill5: “Take It, You Witch!”6: “Bridgie Is Burned!”7: “Amongst Hottentots…”: The Inquest and Inquiry8: A Funeral, Some Photographs, More Fairies9: Two Courtrooms10: Trial and ImprisonmentEpilogue: When Does a True Story End?Acknowledgments and SourcesNotesIndex